Throwaway for insurance. I’ll try to make this as succinct and non-confusing as possible, but the backstory is a bit tangled. Basically, I think a girl has trapped my good guy friend and I need help understanding her thought process.

I have a close guy friend (I’ll call him P) whom I met years ago. We’ve always been strictly platonic; in fact, P introduced me to my SO and set us up on our first date. Anyway, my SO and I are set to move with P and his girlfriend on April 1. Two young couples of whom ¾ are friends sharing a nice house: what could be better?

Everything, as it turns out. P is 29 and has always dated much younger women. I think this is due to his always being around college-age people at his job (barista) and the fact that he started college late and is about to graduate.

P’s girlfriend (I’ll call her M) is 21 and dropped out of college a semester shy of graduation in favor of working as a fast-food cashier. (It wasn’t a money issue; her parents are quite well off and were paying for her tuition.) P and M have been dating seven months, but he was abroad in South Africa on a school trip for two of them so in reality it’s closer to five. They moved in together almost immediately. When M isn’t working, she sits around the house watching TV, doing puffy paintings or sleeping. In short, she’s lazy.

Since my SO and I decided to move in with them, we’ve been spending time there to clean the house, slowly move stuff over and get acclimated to their routines. I started to talk with M to get to know her and found she has exactly one train of thought: “All I want to be is a stay-at-home mommy!” (Exact quote, repeated ad nauseum.) Literally, that was all she talked about.

Alarm bells went off in both my and my SO’s heads, and he couldn’t help bringing it up with P. But he reassured us that M was on birth control and they used condoms, because while he wants kids, he still needs a few more years to prepare mentally and financially.

You can see where this is going.

Last weekend, P dropped two huge bombs. He and M are getting married in May because, surprise, M is pregnant. Supposedly the condom tore and she was, oops, in between birth control prescriptions. Plan B was never discussed, M refuses to abort it or give it up for adoption and her parents are forcing the marriage before she starts to show too much.

P is scared to death, while M is utterly ecstatic. My SO and I are now seeing red when it comes to this girl: we wanted to like her because we’re P’s friends, and we know “it takes two to tango,” but all signs point to her manipulating the situation toward this outcome. We’re afraid that as soon as the baby comes, P is going to find himself shoved aside and stuck in a loveless marriage.

TwoX, I guess I just want to understand the situation and her thought process so I can put aside my prejudices and be supportive of them, instead of feeling rage toward her and disappointment toward P. Right now, it’s so hard because whenever I see her I feel the rage flaring up and have to leave the room. Please help.

TL;DR: my close guy friend/now roommate has been pregnancy-trapped by his girlfriend and is being forced into a marriage. How can I not hate her?

There's nothing to understand. I'll tell you what a therapist once told me: you cannot understand crazy. Don't try to make sense of it, don't try to justify it, don't try to figure it out and dissect it, or you're going to end up crazy yourself. Most importantly, don't even bother trying to do anything to get through to her, because you never will.

The feelings you're having are normal. I would hate her too. She very clearly manipulated your friend and forced a pregnancy on him. In an ideal world, he would be able to get out of taking care of the kid and get this leech out of his life, but that's not the world we live in. The best thing you and your boyfriend can do is try to support your friend and be there for him however you can. Try to focus on him, because if you focus on her it'll be obvious that you hate her and it might drive a wedge between you and your friend, which is the last thing that needs to happen at a time like this. Don't give her a reason to be able to say, "Your friends are so mean to me!" If she's going to be the mother of his kid, that's not going to work out.

And hey, if she's as crazy as she sounds, don't disregard the possibility that the pregnancy is made up to get him to marry her, and she'll soon have a "miscarriage." Seen it a few times.

Thank you so much for this comment, especially your therapist's insight. I'm sharing this with my SO as well because he's even more infuriated about the situation than I am. He has the added stressors of being P's best man at the shotgun wedding and the godfather of the eventual spawn.

I think the biggest challenge is going to be us not being driven apart as friends. While he's scared, he's also become incredibly defensive of her--I think in an attempt to justify everything to make it right in his mind--so it's going to be hard to not resent him as well.

This is true. She's pretty much gotten away with everything--she has the emotional/mental maturity of a spoiled teenager. Once when asked why she doesn't try to clean the kitchen better (she always leaves it an absolute mess), she responded, "Why? It'll just get dirty again." (Side note, their bedroom is a pit, too--they're candidates for "Clean House" and on the borderline of "Hoarders.") I think she equates "stay-at-home mom" with "I get to sit around at home and play with the baby all day" so she can continue to dodge responsibility.

Yes; the lease was signed and agreed to a month ago and he's broken the lease on his old place. He's already been living there a couple weeks already in a guest room while I get my stuff together. Talk about feeling betrayed and lied to...

I strongly suggest that the four of you draw up a list of rules and chores so that you and your SO don't get stuck taking care of the house. Figure out now how you feel about babysitting and diapers. Also, I'd invest in a white noise machine so that you and your SO don't hear the baby during the night.